Unconscious Competency: The Unrecognized Root of Competency Models

In the bad old days, personnel departments just analyzed two things: jobs, which are really collections of task, and skills, which are what people can do.

Starting in the 1970s, however, David McClelland and his protégés developed a different method. Their efforts were a reaction against psychometric testing and the traditional methods of describing, predicting and developing employee performance.

These Harvard-based Freudian psychologists believed that unconscious motives, thoughts, and behaviors are important. They used projective, not psychometric, tests. This does not mean they were obsessed with the deep secrets of the id’s conflict with the super-ego. They believed that humans are not aware of all their assumptions, schemas, and skills. Today, cognitive psychologists and instructional designers would agree. In fact, some training programs deliberately build unconscious competence.

The Unconscious Competence Matrix

McClelland and his protégés investigated the conscious and unconscious thoughts, feelings and behaviors in interviews with high-performing incumbents.  They inquired about critical incidents and they analyzed the common themes that emerged in the stories. This method was called the behavioral event interview (BEI).

1. The researchers were identifying what high performers paid attention to—the story an incumbent chose to tell. They did not focus what they are able to do (skills) or the job requirements (tasks). BEIs are projective tests—like a Rorschach ink-blot test.
2. They only focused on the thinking, motives and behaviors that differentiate superior from average performance. They did not develop exhaustive lists of skills and qualifications needed to do the job. 
3. The often found the difference between superior and average performance was a matter of inter- or intra-personal skills, such as collaboration or emotional intelligence.
4. The analytical (vs. theoretical) results were often surprising. For example, the competency that differentiated the best from average sales people in a furniture chain was “elicits tactile expressions.” Getting someone to express how furniture should feel (vs. how it looks) is the key to selling furniture.  
5. New insights were common.

They unlocked the secrets to high-performance! A genuinely new and different method of developing employees was born.

Now, competency models have become a standard part of HR and leadership development. Many professionals are confused and overusing competencies. We have forgotten about, or ignored, the history of competency models. Competency models have become too common and few organizations use them to unlock the secrets of high performance.

Recently, I was asked to inventory the skills of an organization for workforce planning using a competency model. The model was comprised of general capabilities such as “teamwork” and “communication.” The model was not up to the task; it could not identify whether the organization has the right people with the right skills for the future.

I have heard some equating competency models with knowledge/skills/abilities (KSA) lists. This intellectually lazy simplification is the root of the confusion about competencies. It is better to distinguish competency models as a unique approach to improving performance.

KSAs and competencies are different! KSAs, which are the result of jobs and skills analysis, are associated with individual-differences psychology (e.g., personality and intelligence testing). KSAs work well for some tasks (e.g., workforce planning). Competencies, which are the result of BEIs, are associated with Freudian psychology. Competencies work well for some tasks (e.g., leadership development, understanding intra- and inter-personal demands of jobs). Both methods can be appropriate in certain circumstances. Bottom line:

• Competency models should not be the basis for all HR tasks. For some purposes skill- or task-dictionaries work better.
• There are multiple methods of developing competency models and there is a sweet spot for each. I will blog about this in future posts.

Charley Morrow
www.sageassessments.com

The Nerd Competency Model: What We Can Learn?

Are you a Dweeb, Geek, Nerd or Dork?

Spend time surfing the web and you will find this Venn diagram describing the overlapping capabilities of the “not-cool” kids.   

It is fun, but recently, I had a serious conversation about it.

A friend of mine, who has a doctorate in theoretical physics from Harvard, is burning out from teaching.  Looking at the model, she said “I’m not a nerd. I’m not obsessed enough—I don’t want to spend 90 hours a week perfecting technology.”  However, she is smart; she enjoys doing complex math.  She will probably change to a career that requires lot of smarts but less obsession and people skills. 

I was surprised this internet joke provided insights!  But, upon reflection, we can we learn a few things from this model: 

1. Human performance is based on a mix of capabilities. Intelligence is never enough to be successful! Tech innovators like Mark Zuckerberg are smart, obsessed, and lack social grace.  Change one of these capabilities and you don't get the full package
2. Sometimes lower or even negative capabilities are important for success.  Consider McClelland and Burnham’s seminal finding that the most successful leaders are concerned with power--relationships and influence.  A corporate leader will only be successful if the concern for power is tempered with inhibition.  Similarly, they found that leaders that are overly concerned with relationships make poor leaders
3. The competencies underlying performance are not always obvious.  A nuanced understanding of competencies helps.   If you want to develop leadership in general, you can develop a general competency model.  If you want to develop specific types of leaders, you will be more successful if you fully research the model

Leadership Implications of a Jobless Recovery

US unemployment is ebbing; this is good news for the global economy and many organizations. But we still have a long way to go in terms of reducing unemployment—which will drive general economic growth. We also have a long way to go in terms of corporate leadership and engagement.

Successful leaders will have to address the contours of this changing environment. The recession, and business environment, has made leadership more difficult by breaking trust.



Recently, an HR leader of a Fortune 100 company told me “corporate America has changed. Now, bosses make a choice to lay you off or loose their own job. Inevitably they will lay you off.” I was not surprised. But when I started to think about it, I realized this will make leadership and engagement difficult for managers as the economy picks up.

Actually, the economy has picked up and we are seeing a jobless recovery, which has become the norm in recent recessions, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Since the 1990s, we have seen jobless recoveries.

Strangely economists have been confused by this trend. Derek Thompson, of the Atlantic, weaves together several forces in his theory of jobless recoveries:

1. Executive pay is increasing linked to the stock market, and thus quarterly profitability is of increasing concern to executives. One method of continuing profitability, when faced with reduced revenue, is to reduce costs with layoffs
2. Fewer barriers to lay-offs (lower unionization, rising personnel/medical costs)
3. An increasing contingent workforce, including part time and contract workers. The BLS would consider many of these individuals unemployed. Indeed 27% of US job growth since 2007 has been temp-workers.  The real winner in the current economy are "temp-firms" like Manpower.

So, both the Atlantic and the HR executive agree on one thing—a dog-eat-dog work environment leads to layoffs.

As a consultant that spends a lot of time helping organizations develop leaders, I have to ask how to build leadership in this environment. No matter how you look at it, there is an element of trust in leadership—followers must trust leaders. Yet, in our current environment employees cannot trust their boss, well they can trust them --to lay them off to save their own job, which is the same as no trust at all!

So, the HR leader's statement seemed like a natural enough. But then I was saddened, shocked and yes concerned. I have to ask "can we develop leaders in this environment?"

Of course there are ways to address this—simply noting that the employee-employer relationship has changed is one way to honestly relate and build trust. Regardless, employers will have to develop a method of addressing this new world that requires bravery and yes, honesty.

Is your organization developing a plan to rebuild trust? Without authentic trust, I do not believe there will be employee engagement.

How to improve engagement and disengagement: Why feedback is the first step

The link to leadership.

Talk to anyone about being disengaged in the workplace and they will probably say something about “trust” and something about “management.” Surveys show the same results, supervisor’s leadership style has so much to do with employee engagement and the differences between work groups can be astounding. 

But what to do about it?

Feedback is the link to developing leadership for employee engagement. Most of us do not know, in a nuanced way, how we affect others. Leaders are no different. Feedback can help. The best feedback is measurement as well as understanding and learning from the results of the measurement.

Measuring employee engagement, for example with surveys or focus groups, is a great foundation for improving engagement. It can motivate and direct change.

It is important to make sure that organizational leadership understands engagement, the factors affecting engagement and the engagement of the functions they manage. When you measure engagement the results will tell you something about “trust” and the quality of “management."  If leaders understand the engagement picture they are likely to try to change it for their own good!

Simply giving supervisors a report on engagement in their area is not enough. Feedback can be hard to take and even harder to act upon. Organizations that really want to improve engagement will ensure that managers have support, in workshops or with coaches, to understand and plan how they will act upon the feedback.

Many organizations (namely Dell and Ford) tie manager compensation to survey results. This puts a lot of focus on engagement, but it is not necessary for leadership development. My experience is that most managers want to be better leaders.

Organizations that complete engagement surveys must answer the questions “what groups will be reported upon” and “how many reports do we develop?” A lot of resources (time and money) are required to process feedback. If you have 300 department managers, does each get a report? Further, will all 300 managers get, understand and act upon the feedback? These questions must be practically considered.

Let’s be realistic

Anyone that manages knows that regardless of your leadership skills, other factors affect employees. Pay/benefits, strategy, competition, and organizational culture all affect individual employees and morale/engagement. 

While leadership probably has the biggest impact on day-to-day engagement, there are many factors in building engagement. Successful organizations will consider both; why they need engagement and what to do about it.

I look forward to your thoughts,

Charley Morrow

www.sageassessments.com